Dutch agriculture minister accepts ombudsman’s criticism of farmers’ policy

Dutch agriculture minister Jaimi van Essen says he accepts the National Ombudsman’s criticism that government policy has been unreliable for farmers, and intends to set long-term goals in law as recommended.

“The criticism is right,” Van Essen said, adding that farmers and growers had faced proposals that changed too often. He said he would take the ombudsman’s recommendations to heart and wanted farmers to know where they stood under his recently announced nitrogen policy.

Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen has said farmers have spent years facing changing rules, conflicting policies and unclear decisions. He argues that the government should acknowledge what went wrong and the effects on farmers and their families, and put long-term goals firmly into law.

The minister’s response follows the ombudsman’s broader criticism that the government had been unreliable towards farmers. The ombudsman’s findings on farmers’ trust in government were based on interviews with 32 farmers and other stakeholders.